“As photographs give people an imaginary possession of a past that is unreal, they also help people to take possession of space in which they are insecure.”
Sontag writes this while she is describing family photography. As I understood it, Sontag’s point-of-view is that photos create a rose-colored view of the past and reality.
I can’t disagree more with this statement or her essay in general. I think her tone is so bitter that I really couldn’t relate to anything she tried to argue. This statement about pictures being imaginary memories just got me mad.
The thing I thought about when I read Sontag describe my “unreal past”, was my grandmother. She lived with us while we were growing up—as important in our lives as our parents. She is now 99 and has been in a nursing home, slowly deteriorating for 6 years. She rarely even wakes up to say hi, and if she does, she doesn’t know me. Without pictures of her as a young woman, or even as an active grandma, my kids (10, 7, & 3) would only know her as an old woman in a wheelchair sitting vacantly looking out the window. But that’s not who she is. She is a vibrant, feisty woman, who played kick ball and made Christmas cookies with me every year. And my kids will know that because I have a picture of us doing those things on my wall. The pictures are reality; the woman in the wheelchair is not.
After reading this essay I felt almost guilty that I love photography and photographs; like she was calling me shallow for just seeing the simple beauty in capturing faces and moments. Maybe that was her point. Maybe her mom shows everyone pictures of her in the bathtub and she’s embarrassed. Maybe she just never had a grandma.
Sontag writes this while she is describing family photography. As I understood it, Sontag’s point-of-view is that photos create a rose-colored view of the past and reality.
I can’t disagree more with this statement or her essay in general. I think her tone is so bitter that I really couldn’t relate to anything she tried to argue. This statement about pictures being imaginary memories just got me mad.
The thing I thought about when I read Sontag describe my “unreal past”, was my grandmother. She lived with us while we were growing up—as important in our lives as our parents. She is now 99 and has been in a nursing home, slowly deteriorating for 6 years. She rarely even wakes up to say hi, and if she does, she doesn’t know me. Without pictures of her as a young woman, or even as an active grandma, my kids (10, 7, & 3) would only know her as an old woman in a wheelchair sitting vacantly looking out the window. But that’s not who she is. She is a vibrant, feisty woman, who played kick ball and made Christmas cookies with me every year. And my kids will know that because I have a picture of us doing those things on my wall. The pictures are reality; the woman in the wheelchair is not.After reading this essay I felt almost guilty that I love photography and photographs; like she was calling me shallow for just seeing the simple beauty in capturing faces and moments. Maybe that was her point. Maybe her mom shows everyone pictures of her in the bathtub and she’s embarrassed. Maybe she just never had a grandma.
